The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider convicted murderer Neil Entwistle's quest for a new trial.

The decision means Entwistle will continue to spend his life in prison for killing his wife, Rachel Souza Entwistle, and their 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, in their Hopkinton home in 2006. The couple ghad recently moved from Carver when the crime occurred, and her parents still live there.

"We believe the jury's guilty verdict was just and are pleased for the victims' family that this decision brings an end to this appeal,'' Attorney General Martha Coakley, who was serving as Middlesex district attorney at the time of the murders, said in a statement Monday.

"We are pleased and gratified that this hard-earned conviction has withstood any further appellate review, and that the courts at the highest level in this country continue to uphold this verdict in this case,'' said Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone, who was DA at the time of the trial. "The crimes committed by Neil Entwistle against his wife, Rachel, and daughter, Lillian Rose, remain unimaginable, unspeakable acts and we applaud the diligent efforts of all of those who worked to convict this defendant, resulting in his serving the rest of his life behind bars.''

Springfield attorney Stephen Paul Maidman filed a writ of certiorari, a document asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision of a lower court, in November, following the state's Supreme Judicial Court's decision to uphold Entwistle's conviction.

Maidman could not be reached for comment, but previously told a British newspaper that pretrial coverage of Entwistle's case was "saturating and inflammatory.'' Entwistle "is entitled to a new trial utilizing a jury selection process where there can be no question that the seated jurors are fair and impartial,'' Maidman told The Telegraph in 2011.

In his arguments before the Supreme Judicial Court, Maidman also maintained that police needed a search warrant to enter the Hopkinton home where Rachel's and Lillian's bodies were found.

When reached at his Boston offices Monday afternoon, Weinstein said he had "no comment at this time'' about the Supreme Court decision.

Entwistle, a British national, is currently being held at the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater. He is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after being convicted by a Middlesex Superior Court jury on two counts of murder.

The bodies of his wife and daughter were found on Jan. 22, 2006, in the home they had rented on Cubs Path less than a month before the fatal shootings. Police had conducted a well-being check the day before, after family and friends grew concerned they couldn't reach Rachel, but it was during the second check police discovered the bodies hidden under blankets in the bed of the master bedroom.

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Entwistle had returned to his parents' home in England, using a one-way plane ticket purchased Jan. 21, by the time the murders were discovered.

He was arrested in England in February 2006 and returned to the United States, and has been incarcerated ever since.

"This brings another measure of finality in the legal aspects of this matter, and a welcome additional step toward recovery for the family of Rachel and Lillian Rose,'' Leone said of Monday's Supreme Court decision.